


an essence of himself

by Eisoj5



Series: different ever after: The Sisters Brothers (2018) works [5]
Category: The Sisters Brothers (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Bathing/Washing, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Desk Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Bondage, Oral Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Spitroasting, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:27:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22767736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5
Summary: Morris swung off his horse in front of the Commodore’s mansion, glancing up briefly towards the second-story window for its chief occupant as he tied his horse’s reins to the post.
Relationships: John Morris/Hermann Kermit Warm, The Commodore (The Sisters Brothers)/Hermann Kermit Warm
Series: different ever after: The Sisters Brothers (2018) works [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1269752
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11





	an essence of himself

**Author's Note:**

> This is very different than my usual fic content. **Please heed the tags.**
> 
> (The major character death is the Commodore.)

Morris swung off his horse in front of the Commodore’s mansion, glancing up briefly towards the second-story window for its chief occupant as he tied his horse’s reins to the post. The Commodore did not appear in the window as he often did, his erect bearing and watchful eye putting Morris in mind of some ancient, impassive general on a hill surveying his footsoldiers. But Morris was no such soldier, bound to live and die at the whims of men more powerful than he, and thus he did not mind, nor much note the absence of the Commodore’s overbearing scrutiny. 

Inside, two of the Commodore’s men took up guard positions at the foot of the stairs, but otherwise the mansion was quiet, as it tended to be during the daylight hours. 

Morris said to the men, one of whom he did not know, “Let me by; the Commodore expects my report.” 

“He’s in his study,” the man whom he vaguely recognized said. A peculiar smirk twisted his lips as he spoke. 

The unfamiliar man put his hand out, though, and pointed rudely to Morris’s gun on his hip. “Not with that.”

“It’s just Morris,” the other said, dismissively. “Go on up.”

Morris nodded at him imperiously, and headed up the stairs. Behind him, he heard the men muttering to each other, and then a shared, somehow unsettling chuckle. He ignored it in favor of recounting in his thoughts the information he had gathered for the Commodore as he entered the master bedchamber, his footsteps ringing out on the polished wood floor. 

“Ah, here he is,” the Commodore called out from his study. “The man I’ve been telling you about.” 

Morris went across the bedchamber to the study. The heavy door was ajar, and he pushed it open—and froze with his hand on the doorknob. From the Commodore’s words and the jovial tone of his voice Morris had supposed he entertained some guest, and thus expected to find cigars and fine brandy on full display, not—_not—_

The nearly naked man bent across the Commodore’s desk made a muffled, desperate sound into his gag. 

Morris could not help but stare: the tableau before him demanded it. 

The Commodore busily cut away what remained of the man’s shirts, which at first Morris did not understand, until he saw the man’s hands were bound behind him, at his wrists, and there was no other way to remove the clothing. His pants lay on the floor in faded black ribbons about his bare feet and his slender ankles had been similarly bound, though not to each other. His legs had been forced wide apart and then tied to the legs of the desk with more rope. The whole of what Morris could see of his skin—which was considerable, as the Commodore finished stripping him bare—was brown, not only from laboring in the sun, and his mustache and the hair curling with sweat at his temples as he struggled to rise from his predicament was black as night. 

And, above the gag, his eyes—

“Sir—” Morris said, tentatively, for he could not comprehend—or his mind _would not_ comprehend—what the Commodore was about. 

“Don’t just stand there, John, come in,” the Commodore said, waving his letter-opener at him so the blade flashed in the sunlight. “And close the door behind you.” He set the letter-opener across a slim stack of mail on his desk next to the man’s head. “This is Mr. Warm.” 

He laid a big hand on the back of Warm’s neck and squeezed in what looked almost like a companionable fashion, except that he forced Warm’s head down onto the desk so his cheek pressed against the wood. “I will answer the question next on your lips: Mr. Warm undertook to steal from me, and I mean to punish him for that crime.”

Warm groaned against the gag—it was the Commodore’s own neckerchief, dampened with saliva—and Morris felt his heart beat faster with confusion and dread. The man’s wide dark eyes remained fixed on Morris’s face, burning with an entreaty to help, but he did not know what to do; he had never before had cause to raise objection to the Commodore’s plans, and if Warm had indeed stolen from him—

The Commodore was unbuckling his belt, and for a moment Morris thought he meant to use it to lash Warm’s exposed back. But then the Commodore set that aside, too, and pushed his own expensive pants down, taking hold of Warm’s hips, and it was as if a kaleidoscope turned, and all the colors and shapes of the world Morris thought he had known fell into a new and truly terrible pattern. 

“_Wait_,” Morris snapped, starting towards them with his hands outstretched, but it was too little, too late; Warm’s smothered scream and abortive attempts to squirm free told him that. 

Morris’s mind reeled as he halted but a single step from the door; a shudder trembled throughout his entire body, and yet he could not look away from Warm’s pleading eyes or shut his ears to the man’s stifled sobs as the Commodore thrust him steadily forward across the span of the desk, working the length of himself inside. “Stop, you _must_ stop! Surely—surely there is no crime that could have earned this, or any man such a punishment? What could he possibly have stolen that is worth _this?_”

The Commodore bared his teeth in a death’s head grin and gave a vicious thrust. Warm cried out in agony into the gag, and twisted his hands about inside of his bonds as if he had any chance of escaping that way. He was not a tall man, and the Commodore’s efforts had pushed him up to his toes as he strove to maintain his equilibrium. “He planned to steal himself away from me,” the Commodore said. 

Morris saw Warm try to shake his head in denial against the surface of the desk, moaning piteously. 

“He would not give me his mind,” the Commodore added, patiently, as if that explanation made any more sense than another. “But as I take possession of his body again and again over the coming days and weeks—” He emphasized his point with another series of punishing thrusts, and Warm thrashed futilely and screamed—“The mind will eventually follow.” 

Morris’s chest constricted at the disturbing cheer of his tone. He thought there was no reasoning with him, no shouting for help from the sentries at the stair; the sensible thing to do would be to end this terrible witnessing and try to help Warm later—

“But _you_ wouldn't try to run away from me, would you, John?” the Commodore said. He was scarcely out of breath, though he was not a young man and had not been for decades, and he continued to force himself upon poor Warm with appalling vigor, the drawers of his solid oak desk rattling under the assault. “The Commodore’s Morris, that’s what they call you.” 

Morris did not like where that line of thinking led. He sought something else to look at besides the Commodore’s unnerving, too-bright gaze and found himself meeting Warm’s eyes once more. There was pain and desperation in those dark depths as he writhed beneath the Commodore’s ceaseless, steady advances and retreats, but also a sudden strange commiseration, as though—as though Warm saw that their fates were intertwined in this moment of his suffering. 

But Warm was bound, silenced, and being raped by a madman. Whatever the way out for them both, Morris would have to find it alone. The Commodore had made it plain he was not to leave; he could not shoot him for fear of bringing the sentries in; nor did he think much of his chances if he rushed the man and tried to wrest him from his awful task. 

The Commodore was still speaking. “—more truth to that than you know, John, for I look on you as my heir. All this—” he waved his hand around grandly to point at the furnishings of his study, the books with their pristine leather spines, the untraveled globe by the window—“My mansion, the many business enterprises that I have brought into being. I will share all of it with you.” He smiled, as if this were an entirely normal arrangement for a conversation of that import, and patted Warm’s flank like he was patting a horse. “And my other belongings, too.” 

Warm made no intelligible reply; he was panting too hard, his breath expanding the folds of the gag like a bellows. 

“I—” 

The Commodore snapped his fingers. “Why don’t you share this man with me now?” 

“What? Sir—” for Morris could not let go of the formal address, even as the kaleidoscope in his mind tilted and tilted—“Sir, I do _not_ want this, and—”

“Yes, you shall,” the Commodore decided, gesturing for Morris to come and stand in front of the desk. “Take his mouth.” 

Warm’s eyes widened impossibly larger, and Morris thought that he was simply more frightened at the prospect of a second violation, but then he cast his gaze sideways at the letter-opener which lay by his head, out of reach of his bound hands, before meeting Morris’s eyes again. 

His meaning could not be clearer. 

Morris’s heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest. 

Could he do it? 

He had known the Commodore to be unforgiving; now the light had changed, and he saw many of the actions he himself had taken in pursuit of the Commodore’s goals to be the exercise of cruelty, and nothing more. 

He _could_, and it would put an end to Warm’s torment as well as his own, and to the Commodore’s tyrannical hold over the Territory and the other once-good men who lived and died at his word. 

The Commodore, however engaged as he was with Warm’s person, still watched him with an astute eye, and despite his age, Morris knew him to be a more than competent fighter. If Morris determined to strike, he would need a moment of inattention. 

He steeled himself. He was under no pretense that what he intended to do in order to carry out the act bore any resemblance to heroism, but it would bring him close enough to hand, and he would gladly suffer whatever penance Warm wanted, after. 

All these deliberations flew through Morris’s mind in fractions of a second, and then he was stepping forward to close the gap between himself and the unfortunate Warm, who moaned again as he drew near. Above him, the Commodore smiled paternally, and Morris’s stomach twisted. To hide his revulsion he looked down at Warm, putting one hand on the knot of the gag behind his head and said, “If I take it off, will you keep quiet?”

“No one will come no matter how loud he screams,” the Commodore said, dismissively. He was still rocking forcefully but unhurriedly in and out of Warm, evidently more interested in what perversions he might coerce Morris into than finishing himself. “And you'll stop his cries soon enough.” 

Morris felt Warm tremble under his hand, but he nodded once in assent. His eyes were very beautiful up close, lined with startlingly long eyelashes, and the look he gave Morris was plaintive and hopeful and afraid all at once. Morris tugged the gag free over Warm’s head, and the man did as he was bade, merely panting for breath as the Commodore continued to abuse him. 

Morris undid the fastenings of his pants—if he was to move quickly, he was not going to be hobbled by them around his ankles the way the Commodore was—and drew his cock out from the opening. He was not hard at all, but even in his present state the sight was enough to cause Warm to try to pull away. There was nowhere for him to go except impale himself further onto the Commodore, and once he had done so, the Commodore pushed him forward over the desk again. 

Warm’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he whispered, “_Please—” _

Morris focused on Warm’s mouth, the tender pink flash of his tongue, and tried to imagine them together under more pleasant and mutually agreed-upon circumstances. It was not as difficult as he supposed; Warm was a well-formed man, upon whose beauty Morris might have remarked if he had encountered a painting of him in a salon. He reluctantly gave his cock a couple of strokes and found it slowly hardening. 

He put his other hand back on Warm’s neck, but he did not squeeze the way the Commodore had, possessive and painful. Instead he trailed his hand up into Warm’s thick black hair, almost a caress, and then he took hold of his hair and pulled his head sharply backwards. 

Warm’s mouth opened involuntarily with a gasp, and the Commodore gave an approving grunt. 

Morris stared down into Warm’s eyes once more, searching for understanding or forgiveness, and then he shoved his cock into Warm’s mouth as far as it could go. 

Tears sprang into Warm’s eyes for the first time as he choked and shuddered. Morris nearly pulled back, afraid his gambit had already gone too far, but the Commodore had drawn a half-strangled breath of his own at Morris’s apparent viciousness and begun to pursue his release in earnest. 

Morris kept his hand buried in Warm’s soft hair, though he relaxed his grip and tried to reassure or console him instead of holding his head down, by petting his scalp. Warm’s throat spasmed around Morris’s cock convulsively, though, and at the arch of his back his bound hands clawed at the air as if he were trying to push his assailants away. 

The Commodore pounded into Warm mercilessly now, forcing Warm to take more and more of Morris’s cock with every thrust. Warm’s occasional stifled cries of pain became constant whimpers, and Morris clung to that horror to prevent himself from spending in the clinch of his throat, resolved to keep from defiling the man any further. 

It was unimaginable that the Commodore should last as long as he did, but he seemed determined to draw out the torturous task, muttering obscenities about how he and Morris would make use of Warm between them until he gave up every last one of his secrets. For his part, Morris was torn between prolonging Warm’s waking agony and allowing him to fall unconscious for lack of air; his eyelids were fluttering by the time the Commodore gave one final powerful thrust and held Warm fast. 

Warm shut his eyes fully as the Commodore spilled inside him, but they flew open again as he withdrew his softening pale cock with a satisfied sigh and bent to retrieve his pants from the floor. Morris stilled his own scarcely twitching hips, doing his best to ignore the cresting sensation of pleasure from the tight heat of Warm’s mouth, and waited. 

“You see how much better it is to share?” the Commodore said as he straightened up and began to turn back to his desk for his belt, and Morris pulled himself free, seized the letter-opener, and plunged it into the Commodore’s neck. 

The Commodore choked off a cry of shock, his hands flying to his neck as he slumped forward over Warm’s bound form, and Morris jerked the letter-opener out with as much vehemence as he could muster. Blood gushed forth over the Commodore’s clutching fingers, spraying over Morris’s face and Warm’s bare arms and back. Despite his mounting abhorrence of what he had done, Morris had enough presence of mind to come round the side of the desk, catching hold of the Commodore as he collapsed and easing his body to the floor so it would not make a too-loud thump and arouse the suspicions of the men downstairs. 

He wiped his face with his sleeve and held onto the Commodore as his life’s blood drained swiftly from him, looking directly into his eyes as they faded and silently damning the man until the last ragged breath issued from his lips. Then he regained his feet, shakily, taking care to stand in Warm’s line of sight as he buttoned up his pants. 

Warm did not move, at first, except to turn his head a little to look behind him at the Commodore's fallen body. Then he raised his eyes to Morris, and Morris held his breath, unable to make himself look away from the man’s dark gaze: where there should have been recrimination and hatred was only a lingering sheen of pain and, perplexingly, a faint gleam of curiosity. 

“Was that the first time you have ever killed a man?” Warm asked. His voice was hoarse from the ill use to which Morris had put him, but his words were clear enough. Morris gave a swift nod, clenching his bloody hands in fists to stop them from quaking. 

Warm nodded in return. He pressed his forehead against the wood of the desk and took a deep breath. “When you are recovered, would you kindly untie me?” 

“Yes, dear God,” Morris said, hastily, and set about trying to loosen the rope tied around his poor wrists. His struggles during the ordeal had only tightened the knots further, though, and Morris said, looking about for a sharp implement other than what he had killed the Commodore, “Mr. Warm, I beg your pardon, but I will have to cut you free.”

Warm made a sound caught between a laugh and a sob. “Please believe me, Mr. Morris, when I say that I have already granted you permission to do everything and _anything_ that will get us out of this disaster.”

Morris swallowed hard against the image that rose, unbidden, of his own cock between Warm’s lips. He retrieved the letter-opener from the floor where he had dropped it and began to cut through the rope binding Warm’s wrists. When that was done, he knelt to deal with the same about his ankles. He looked up once and instantly regretted it, for the Commodore’s blood and spend matted the dark hairs on Warm’s trembling thighs and the shadow of his own soft cock. 

“I’m finished,” Morris said. He got up, again planning to remain a safe distance from Warm, but the moment Warm came down squarely on his feet, his legs gave way, and Morris barely managed to arrest his fall. 

Warm shook in his arms, and Morris nearly dropped him, in part because he was slippery with the Commodore’s blood, and for another, to keep from touching his bare skin. But Warm did not fight Morris’s hold on him and in fact gripped his arm tightly, his breath coming in short gasps until he steadied. 

“We won’t make it very far like this,” he said, with a touch of ruefulness. “There were at least two men who dragged me in here, and I can’t imagine I can walk past them covered in your employer’s blood.”

“You can scarcely _stand_,” Morris replied. He made a decision; stooped a little and picked Warm up in his arms to carry him into the bedchamber, depositing him gingerly onto his front on the Commodore’s enormous four-post bed. 

He heard Warm’s breath catch as he went to the door and locked it with the intention of buying them a few minutes to rest and recover, and when he turned back Warm was looking at him with no small trace of renewed fear. His bile rose at the idea that Warm might think him—what he had already become—and he raised a trembling hand to his mouth. “Mr. Warm, I—” 

Warm closed his eyes, and although Morris had seen him fully unclothed and exposed, it was the man’s true vulnerability that he saw on his face now. “I trust you,” he said, simply. 

Morris nearly broke—but they were a long way from the kind of safety in which he could allow his shame and despair to surface, and instead of going to Warm’s bedside and weeping, he went and brought the entire washstand over. He swallowed again, looking at the filth that stained Warm’s back and legs, and said quietly, “Will you permit me to bathe you?” 

Warm nodded and put his head down into the pillows, and Morris set about his task, first soaking the cloth in thankfully lukewarm water from the pitcher, cautiously wiping down Warm’s slender hairy legs and his graceful feet, and then wringing the cloth out and starting again. He worked in silence, listening for any footfalls coming up the stairs to check on the Commodore or the state of his two unwilling guests, and thus it was easy to hear when Warm’s steady breathing began to hitch and pick up speed. 

“Am I hurting you?” Morris said, alarmed. He had avoided touching Warm’s abused backside, delaying the inevitable as much as possible by tending to the strained muscles of his calves, but—

“No,” Warm said, muffled somewhat in the pillows. His hands gripped the blankets tightly. “It’s only—no one’s touched me gently in what seems to be a very long time.” 

“Oh,” Morris said, and then, as calmly as he could manage, “I am sorry that _I_ am the one to do so, after—after—” 

Warm lifted his head, rubbed the heel of his hand over his wet eyes, and then he just looked at Morris over the top of the pillows. “He said I’d understand what little chance I had of escaping his grasp, by seeing what he had made of a good man like you.” 

Morris found himself wringing the cloth in his hands well beyond the point where any more droplets could fall. 

“He believed that you were his already, and he would mold you still further in his image,” Warm went on. “That if he gave an order, you would obey without question—that your loyalty had smothered whatever kindness remained in your—”

"What I have done to you is not _kindness_," Morris said, utterly horrified. His legs would not bear him up any longer, but he could not allow himself to collapse on the bed next to Warm, and instead sank to his knees and pressed his face against the mattress. 

“You threw away a chance at riches and power to save a complete stranger,” Warm said. 

“By _fucking_ you,” Morris said. 

Warm was quiet for a moment. “Would it ease your conscience to know that I’ve had more, and worse, done to me before I even came to this town?” 

“For God’s sake—” 

“I’m fairly certain it was not,” Warm said, dryly. 

“Why are you telling me all of this?” 

There was movement above him, and Morris raised his head to see Warm turning about on the bed so that they could look each other in the eye. “So you’ll help me,” he said. “You’re your own man again, and can do as you please, but I’ll be honest and say that I need someone like you—if I’m to stay out of the clutches of people like _him_.” 

Morris stared at him. 

“It sounds awfully manipulative, I know,” Warm said, his mouth twisting under his mustache. “But I had time to think, while—while he was—during the time I was his prisoner, about the many mistakes I’ve made, and I’m resigned to the fact that I need someone kind—_yes_, kind—but who can act in ways that I can’t.” His smile was deeply sad. “Even if he said you weren’t a killer.” 

Morris said, “I—” and stopped for lack of any idea what to say next. 

“You can refuse,” Warm added. “I’ve given you no idea what I’m about, and I don’t think I will until we’ve left this place together. If you decide to go your own way, then I’ll only ask that you help me get free of the men downstairs.” 

“_This_ is what you thought about while he—I—abused you?” 

“I also read the titles of the books on his shelves and came to the conclusion he hoped to portray himself as more educated than he was,” Warm said. He shrugged at Morris’s incredulous look. “As I said, this wasn’t the first time I’ve been used in such a fashion.” 

“It will be the last,” Morris said, definitively. He grasped the bedpost, pulled himself to his feet, and offered Warm his hand. “Please believe me, Mr. Warm, when I say I _will_ do anything to prevent you from coming to harm again.” 

Warm turned onto his side to take his hand, and shook it firmly. 

Then he grimaced, looking at the blood on Morris’s clothing, and Morris remembered he had not finished washing him clean of what the Commodore had spilled onto and inside of him. He gestured for Warm to turn over again, and wetted the cloth that had dried in his hands. 

“I want to be clear I don’t expect you to be my servant,” Warm said, as Morris set to once more. “I don’t believe in those hierarchies, and the exercise of power over—” 

“I think I am going to have to touch you,” Morris interrupted him. Warm’s feet and calves and the backs of his knees were very clean now. “Where—where he did.” 

Warm tensed, but he said, “All right,” and gradually spread his legs on the bed. 

Morris drew a breath, and began to apply the cloth to the worst of the mess on his thighs. It took longer than he wanted, in order to keep his touch gentle rather than scrubbing the sensitive skin, and by the end of it Warm’s breath was coming very quickly and unevenly. 

He looked up; Warm was gazing over his shoulder at him. “I have to—” 

“Yes,” Warm said, and buried his face in the pillows again. He shuddered at the first whisper of the cloth over his hole, but once again he did not fight Morris’s touch. His shoulders hunched and shook, was all, until Morris finally finished and realized to his horror that Warm was weeping silently into the pillows. 

“No—oh, no, I should have let you do it,” Morris said, shame and guilt flooding him. He dropped the cloth in the basin—the water had turned a terrible red—and backed away from the bed. “Mr. Warm, I beg your forgiveness, I did not mean to overstep—” 

“It’s all right,” Warm managed. “As—as I said, no one has touched me with any gentleness—” He clutched at the pillows about his face, and when he continued his voice was almost as muffled as if he were still gagged. “And I would welcome it again.” 

Morris gulped. It was wrong, that Warm should crave his touch after he had so cruelly taken him by force, but he could not deny the man some relief. He came nearer. “What would you ask of me?” 

Warm trembled, and looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. “Nothing so much as what you’ve already done—” 

“I should think not,” Morris said, grimly.

Another shudder went through Warm’s frame. “But it can wait until after we’ve made good our escape.” 

Morris nodded, grateful to set that aside for the moment. “Have you thought that through as well, and I need only follow your direction?” 

“Not as such. I know I can’t go out the window in this state, and I assume the men I mentioned earlier are still somewhere in the house?” 

“At the bottom of the stairs,” Morris said. He frowned. “Did they know what the Commodore intended, when they brought you in here?” 

Warm said, flatly, “Yes.” 

Morris could not help but imagine that they must have helped the Commodore tie him down, making crude jokes all the while, and with an effort he said, “All right. How are you at lying limply and staying silent?” 

Warm gestured at his presently limp self. “Am I to play dead?” 

“Yes, but more quietly than that,” Morris said, taking stock of the situation. His bloodied shirt and coat would be to their benefit, but he had cleaned Warm up rather thoroughly—“One moment,” he said, and went back into the study.

It was a matter of minutes to gather what he wanted, and then he came back out with the ropes and a satchel over his arm and his free hand dripping blood. “Hold your leg out,” he said, and when Warm did so he smeared the Commodore’s blood all down his calf. 

“This was _not_ how I envisioned you might touch me again,” Warm said. 

“I can go back and fetch the gag,” Morris said, raising his eyebrows. 

Warm smiled, and Morris felt certain he was going to want to see that expression on his face again if they managed to escape and set off together. To cover his sudden and inexplicable nervousness, he said, “I’m going to roll you up in the blankets, carry you out to my horse, and ride away as if I have been ordered to dispose of your body.” 

“And if someone sees you—what am I saying, no one will question the Commodore’s Morris,” Warm said. 

Morris paused in the act of ransacking the Commodore’s wardrobe and looked over at him, shaking his head. “Not the Commodore’s,” he said, softly, and meant it. 

Warm fell silent, looking at him with something like surprise. Then he lay back on the bed and gestured for Morris to proceed with the plan he had set forth. 

It took very little time to wrap Warm up so that only his bloodied leg stuck out of one end of the blankets and his hair was visible at the other. Morris went to the door, unlocked and opened it, and then he slung the coils of rope and the newly stuffed satchel over one shoulder and hefted his unfortunate-seeming burden over the other shoulder, stabilizing Warm’s dead weight with his hand. 

He came out into the hallway and somehow managed to close the bedchamber door behind him. The men at the bottom of the stairs looked up, and Morris freed his hand for a moment to put his finger to his lips, jerking his head at the door to suggest the Commodore merely slept inside. They watched him slowly make his way down with undisguised curiosity, and when he reached them, one of them hissed, “Christ, Morris, did you fuck him to _death?”_

“I mean, I thought he’d look pretty choking on my cock,” the other guard mused. “But I didn’t know you and the Commodore would take it so—” He broke off and shook his head in distaste. “Too bad.” 

Morris glared at him. “Get the door,” he ordered, coldly, and the man he didn’t know hastened to do so. 

The sun was beginning to set as he came outside and hoisted Warm’s limp body over the back of his horse. The stallion shifted his feet nervously as Morris tied Warm in place with the pieces of rope that had bound him to the desk, perhaps sensing Morris’s own misgivings about doing so. Then he mounted up and nudged his horse into as slow a trot as he dared, mindful of the many curious eyes following them away from the Commodore’s mansion. 

He rode until he was certain no one followed him and they were well into the forest and out of sight of town. He dismounted and untied the bundle of Warm and the blankets, and carefully unrolled him again—

“Like Cleopatra,” Warm muttered, as the last fold of cloth came away. He wore a dazed expression; no great surprise, after the jolting he must have taken during the ride. 

“Cleopatra?” Morris said, and then it sank in, and he added as he helped Warm to sit up—or at least to recline against a tree, when he winced—“I’m afraid I cannot offer you the strength or riches of Rome in our new alliance.” 

Warm said, “I would accept _clothing_.” 

Morris nearly laughed, but the circumstances in which Warm’s own had been stripped from him were too near and too dire, and so he only took down the satchel he had stolen and gave it to Warm to investigate its contents. “I’ll start a fire while you dress.” 

He gave Warm his back out of reflexive respect for his privacy, although that was utterly nonsensical after the way they had spent the afternoon, and soon enough he had a decent-sized fire keeping the darkness at bay. When he turned around again, Warm had donned one of the Commodore’s shirts, pants, and a coat. But despite his newly acquired layers of clothing and the spreading heat of the fire he was huddled in on himself and shivering, his eyes frighteningly blank and dull except for the tears shining in them. 

“Mr. Warm?” Morris said. He went to him and knelt by his side, apprehensive once more of touching him, but Warm had said—

He laid a hand on Warm’s shoulder, and when the man did not throw him off in revulsion and panic, he folded Warm in his arms as he might embrace a friend, murmuring the apologies he had not yet fully voiced and promises to see that no more harm befell him. 

Little by little Warm’s shuddering ceased. “Thank you,” he said, quietly. 

“If there is any more comfort I may offer in the days to come, you have only to ask,” Morris said, opening his arms to let Warm go and sitting back on his heels. “Even—or perhaps especially—if it is my absence.” 

Warm shook his head. “You are a good man, John Morris, and a good man is the thing I need most in my life, just now.” 

Morris trembled, and he felt tears upon his face; disbelieving, he dashed them away with his sleeve, but he said, haltingly, “Very well. What is it you will have me do?” 

A smile graced Warm’s mouth, and he said, “My name is Hermann Kermit Warm, and I am a chemist—” 

*

**Author's Note:**

> I fully intended to work on my other Warm/Morris fic(s) (or the ongoing WIP for another fandom) over this long weekend, and instead I wrote five thousand words of _this._ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Thanks to morag for the beta even from her sickbed <3 and thanks for reading! If you're interested in other possible takes on "Morris rescues Warm from varying degrees of unpleasantness" hit me up in the comments and I'll see about writing them!


End file.
